The Grim Company: 1

by Luke Scull

  He had held Salazar’s very life in his hands. He could have liberated Dorminia and its people from the grip of its tyrannical, murderous lord and ushered in a new age of justice and prosperity for all. Oh, the city would have been seized by Thelassa in short order, he had no doubt, but life under the White Lady’s banner would surely be better than the random executions and systematic terrorization that were part of everyday life in this festering heap of shit.

  He could have been a hero, or at the very least an unsung martyr. Instead he had chosen to save his own skin, as befitted the coward he undoubtedly was. He only hoped the Magelord of Thelassa never learned of his actions. In one fell swoop, he had ruined the White Lady’s plan for liberating the Grey City without the need for a bloody war.

  Preparations for Dorminia’s defence were well under way. The Crimson Watch had already begun sweeping the poorer districts and conscripting young men into the makeshift army that would defend Dorminia from Thelassa’s hired mercenaries. Eremul doubted the forced enrolment of the city’s dregs would prove to be of much benefit. When given a choice between a known tyrant and a potential saviour, only a fool would fight tooth and nail for the former.

  The Halfmage had seen enough of the White Lady’s agents up in the abandoned lighthouse to predict a swift end to the conflict – especially with half the city’s Augmentors forcibly retired and probably suicidal. Dorminia was slipping from Salazar’s grasp, and there was little the ruthless old bastard could do about it. Even a Magelord has limits, and Salazar had exhausted himself destroying Shadowport. And no one knew quite what the White Lady herself was capable of.

  ‘What do we have so far?’ he asked irritably. There was a small stack of books on a table next to Goodlady Cyreena. She glanced at the spines.

  ‘Before the Fall: A History of the Events Leading up to the Godswar. A Grand Tour of the Sun Lands. The Soaring Spires: An Examination of Thelassan Society. The Warrior Princes of Sumnia. What’s this one?’ She picked up a small tome covered in purple leather. ‘Staring into the Abyss: The Planar Convergence. What does this have to do with the war?’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ he snapped in response. ‘It’s something I’m studying in my spare time. That book shouldn’t be in the pile.’

  The Augmentor flicked through the pages, her lips pursed in concentration. He had thought her pretty, he recalled – until it became clear she was a barely functioning sociopath. That had killed any latent desire he might have felt.

  Not that my passions amount to anything worth a damn. He hadn’t been intimate with anyone except his right hand for longer than he cared to remember.

  ‘You believe this? All this nonsense about demons and bogeymen?’ The woman’s voice was scornful.

  Eremul sighed in irritation. ‘My wizardly forebears stormed the heavens themselves, did they not? It follows that there is a dark counterpart to the celestial plane.’

  ‘Your time would be better spent researching how to protect our northern borders from the abominations that plague us. Those are real threats – not childish nonsense.’

  He couldn’t resist giving the goodlady a scornful look. ‘I am led to understand it is your duty to combat these menaces when they threaten Dorminia. Perhaps it is difficult to find the time. After all, you are so very busy terrorizing the populace.’

  Cyreena stared back at him. There was something vaguely familiar about that face, but at that moment all he could focus on was the seething hatred burning behind her eyes. ‘I do as I am commanded,’ she said. ‘Nothing more. As should you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about my dedication,’ he spat back. ‘After all, did I not save Salazar’s very life? I ought to be posing now for a sculptor. I deserve a statue somewhere in the city, surely. Why, it would barely count as half a job. Ardling could surely negotiate a discount.’

  The Augmentor’s voice softened. ‘You sound bitter. I would not blame you for hating our master.’

  Her words surprised him. He narrowed his eyes. ‘This is what you do, isn’t it?’ he said accusingly. ‘You tempt the gullible into treacherous thoughts so you can arrest them for treason later on. You fucking succubus.’

  She stared at him and said nothing.

  ‘You’re worse than the rest of them,’ he continued. He knew he should probably keep his mouth shut, but recent events and his subsequent treatment as some kind of skivvy for that perfect golden-haired bastard lording it up at the Obelisk had enraged him. ‘How many careless fools have you led to the noose with your tastefully exposed tits and serpent’s tongue? How many families have you destroyed? Do you take some kind of sick pleasure from this?’

  Goodlady Cyreena sneered in response, a look of such utter contempt that Eremul was impressed in spite of himself. ‘That’s rich coming from you, Halfmage. You’ve been informing for his lordship for years. The only difference between us is that I do this willingly – not because I’m too much of a coward to choose otherwise. You’re like an abused dog that still tongues his master’s arse hoping for a pat on the head.’

  The woman’s words cut him like a blade. She had struck him right where he was weakest. He felt the blood pounding in his head, closed his eyes and gripped the sides of his chair so hard his fingers hurt. You bitch. You ruthless, perceptive bitch.

  His magic burgeoned inside him. He was a hair’s breadth from evoking and unleashing it at the Augmentor when he felt a prick on his hand. He looked down.

  There was a tiny speck of blood on his palm. The woman had crossed over to him and stabbed him with her hairpin, which had been hidden underneath her hair. He had forgotten it was there. He felt himself go numb. When he tried to wriggle his fingers they refused to respond.

  Goodlady Cyreena watched him like a hawk, her hairpin poised to stab him again. When she was certain he was fully paralysed, she relaxed and placed the pin back in her hair.

  He tried to summon his magic again. It was useless. The enchantment that numbed his body also dampened his ability to channel his own magical reserves. He was as powerless as a newborn babe.

  Wonderful. The day just gets better and better. He couldn’t even move his mouth to hurl an obscenity at the damned woman.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ the Augmentor said. She grabbed his chair and spun him around to face the door, then pushed him outside. A child was kicking a stone down the street. The boy looked up curiously as they emerged into the afternoon sun.

  The clouds that had hung over Dorminia like a shroud for the last few days had finally dispersed. Now a new problem faced the city. Bodies were beginning to wash up, hundreds of them, bloated corpses floating in on tides that had travelled all the way from the flooded remnants of Shadowport. The City of Shades was slowly regurgitating its dead.

  Eremul watched the clean-up operation in the harbour as the goodlady wheeled him slowly down towards the docks. He had no idea what the woman planned to do with him, but he suspected it would not be pleasant.

  Maybe she’s going to throw me into the harbour. Will my chair carry me straight to the bottom like a stone, or will I float free to enjoy a more leisurely drowning? I can hardly decide which I prefer. Perhaps a net will sweep me up and deposit my corpse on one of those trawlers.

  He felt strangely calm. If he was going to die, drowning probably wasn’t such a bad way to go.

  As it turned out, it appeared his tormentor had other intentions. They stopped short of the harbour and took a left turn into a narrow street piled high with stinking rubbish on either side and peopled with rough-faced men and women. Whether it was Goodlady Cyreena’s demeanour or just the sheer absurdity of an attractive woman wheeling a legless cripple around in one of the scummiest parts of town, no one bothered to molest them as they made their way down the alley. Eventually they stopped in front of a run-down house, little more than a shack, with a broken door and a roof that sagged in the middle and was coated in bird shit.

  The Augmentor stood there for a time, staring at the decrepit little building. ‘This is
where I was born,’ she said. Her voice was carefully neutral but the words shocked him nonetheless. He found that he could move his eyebrows now. One of them arched up in surprise.

  ‘You won’t remember the riots that took place during the Culling,’ she continued. ‘I imagine you were indisposed at the time.’

  What gave you that idea, he wanted to say, but his lips still refused to form the words. He made do with a frown.

  ‘The city was in chaos. The mages fought back, as you might expect, which gathered support for an uprising. This particular area was a hotbed of unrest.’ She looked up and down the dirty streets. ‘I was one of the loudest calling for change. I was in my early twenties then, in love with one of the ringleaders of the rebellion.’

  She stared at the busted door hanging off its hinges. This time there was a hint of emotion in her voice. ‘My parents were loyalists. They wanted no trouble. When the revolt was in full swing and there was fighting out on the streets, out here’ – she gestured, sweeping her hand around to take in the filthy row of houses – ‘my lover convinced me to let his gang into my home. He knew I was sympathetic to the rebellion and assumed my family were the same. They demanded my father and brother join them in fighting the soldiers.’

  Eremul sat and listened in silence. It wasn’t as if he had much choice in the matter, but hearing this cold-blooded Augmentor reveal her past was oddly compelling. Besides, she seemed to be finding the experience cathartic. He hoped that boded well for his continued existence when she got around to deciding what to do with him.

  ‘My family… exchanged harsh words with the rebels. My brother took a knife in the throat. That set my father off. He, too, was murdered while my lover held me back. I screamed and kicked but he wouldn’t let me go.’

  Goodlady Cyreena went silent for a time. There was a strange glint in her eyes now. ‘My lover dragged me from the house as his friends raped my sister. She was little more than a child.’

  Eremul fancied he saw a tear, though it could have been a trick of the light. I suppose I should be grateful I’m paralysed, he thought. I might be expected to rise from my chair and give her a supportive hug. That would be awkward for both of us.

  The Augmentor blinked and suddenly her momentary vulnerability was gone. ‘My lover was cut down by soldiers barely a second after we stepped out of the house. I was arrested and released a few weeks later. When I returned, I found my mother had committed suicide. My sister was nowhere to be seen. I never learned what became of her.’

  She turned to him and crossed her arms in front of her ample chest. ‘Civilization functions only because strong men do not permit weaker men to indulge their baser instincts. Freedom and liberty are the means by which anarchy reigns – and anarchy is the natural state for men to freely express the evil that lurks within them. Within all of them. Within you,’ she added, staring down at him with an expression that froze his blood.

  This woman is insane.

  ‘I was young and naive. I am no longer that person. I no longer answer to the same name. There is but one man I believe in, and he is no man at all. He is a god.’

  She bent down so her face was close to his. ‘Feel no sorrow for those you betray,’ she said softly. ‘Embrace what you do. You serve Salazar, whose wisdom is beyond reproach by the likes of us. Do not lament the loss of your legs. Instead, celebrate the fact they have liberated you from the evil you would have otherwise committed. You are half a man – yet by virtue of that simple fact, you possess only half the evil of a man.’

  She turned away from Eremul and so, fortunately for him, didn’t see the look of pure poison he shot her. Batshit insane. She’s batshit insane.

  The Augmentor looked up at the sinking sun. Evening was near. ‘I will bring the books we gathered to the Obelisk,’ she said. ‘You can make your way home in your own time. The paralysis shouldn’t last much longer.’

  Goodlady Cyreena walked away without a backward glance.

  It was growing dark by the time he recovered enough feeling in his arms to begin wheeling himself up the side street and back towards the depository. This was the worst day he could remember since the Obelisk dungeons had changed his life, and that was no small feat – there was the time he had fallen out of his chair while taking a shit and wallowed in his own excrement for six hours waiting for Isaac to return, to name but one possible contender.

  He wondered what had become of Isaac and the rest of the small band that had set off for the Wailing Rift two weeks past. The ship sent up Deadman’s Channel to investigate the collapsed mine had failed to discover any sign of the saboteurs. That gave him hope they were still alive. Despite his maddening enthusiasm and annoying knack for effortlessly picking up new skills, Isaac had proved a loyal assistant.

  Lost in sudden melancholy, he didn’t realize how close he had come to the harbour until he heard the sound of lapping water below. His curiosity got the better of him and he wheeled his chair out until he overlooked the vast expanse of water. The cleaning operation was winding down for the night. Crew were disembarking all around him. He gazed out, amusing himself with the thought of Isaac and the others slipping furtively through the detritus of floating corpses on their tiny sailing boat, wondering what disaster had befallen the city in their absence.

  An odd noise suddenly caught his attention. It almost sounded like a baby crying, and it came from somewhere below him. He peered down into the murky water.

  There. A tiny bundle fidgeted pathetically on a small piece of flotsam bobbing towards him. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching and then, with a brief unveiling of magic, he levitated the twitching figure up to drift slowly into his arms.

  It was a dog – a scrawny little thing with patchy grey fur and drooping ears. It watched him nervously with watery brown eyes.

  Eremul felt something strange stir within him. This poor creature had somehow lived through the absolute destruction of its city. Even more miraculously, it had survived a voyage across the Broken Sea clinging to a fragile piece of furniture.

  The dog leaned forwards and licked his nose. He flinched away, then reached forwards and patted its head. We’re the same, you and I, he thought. A pair of mongrels, cast adrift, clinging to whatever we can to make it through the day.

  He remembered what Goodlady Cyreena had said to him. You’re like an abused dog that still tongues his master’s arse hoping for a pat on the head.

  The Augmentor had been wrong about that. He had saved Salazar’s life only because his own had depended on it. He would have his vengeance when the time was right, when the old bastard least expected it. He wasn’t like her – a broken, vicious, evil thing. All right, perhaps he was broken and occasionally vicious, but evil? He patted the dog on the head again.

  Would an evil man rescue a stranded animal from certain death? I’m taking you back to the depository with me. Hopefully that crazy bitch has left by now. There’s some offal in the larder if I can get it out. I might even have a tasty leg of pork down there. If you’re a really good boy you can—

  ‘Argh.’

  He jerked back as a warm stream of piss spurted from between the dog’s legs and splashed onto his face, dribbling down his chin and then his robes. Instinctively he thrust the animal away. It slipped from his grasp and he heard the splash as it hit the water below. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and squinted down, searching for any sign of the animal.

  It was gone.

  He sat there for a time, staring at nothing in particular. Then, very slowly, he turned his chair around and began the lonely journey back to the depository.

  The Final Test

  ‘Left. Right. Thrust. Good.’

  He turned aside the assassin’s curved dagger, this one thankfully devoid of venom, and stepped back.

  His training had been intense, harder than anything he had ever known. Day and night were meaningless in this dark place – it felt as though no sooner had he collapsed on his bedroll than he was being prodded awake agai
n for more countless hours of sparring. He had learned the best spots to stab a man so that he died quickly and quietly. He and the Darkson had stalked each other through the ruined streets of the holy city, both seeking to avoid detection and take the other by surprise. While Cole had yet to get the better of the Shamaathan, the Darkson had commented frequently on his progress.

  ‘You were a tool,’ the dark-skinned man was telling him now. ‘Rough-edged, unfocused, and yet not without a certain promise. Now you are becoming a weapon.’

  ‘A weapon,’ Cole repeated. ‘An angel of death.’

  The Darkson frowned. ‘That remains to be seen. Your final test awaits you before we are done here. It will test everything you have learned.’

  The assassin led him across a wide avenue of collapsed buildings, holding a torch in one gloved hand to light the way. Eventually they came to a jumble of leaning walls that formed a narrow passage. Darkness lay within.

  ‘The section of ruins ahead is a veritable maze of alleys,’ the Darkson explained. ‘Somewhere within is your target. You are to hunt him down. When you find him, you are to kill him.’

  ‘Kill him?’ Cole repeated, somewhat uncomfortably. ‘What has he done to deserve death?’

  The Darkson paused. ‘Does it matter? He is an enemy of Thelassa.’

  Cole thought about this for a moment. He had sunk the boat that had been pursuing the Redemption, but that had been full of Watchmen intent on harming him and his fellow escapees. Besides, that had been an almost impersonal act. He had never actually killed a man face to face. Not with steel in hand.

  ‘What kind of enemy?’ he persisted.

  The Shamaathan narrowed his eyes. ‘The worst kind. The kind who would see Thelassa put to the sword.’ He paused for a moment. ‘You told me you were an angel of death.’

  ‘I’m a hero,’ Cole replied.